Echinocereus berlandieri was originally discovered along the Nueces River, presumably the mouth of the river near Corpus Christi, and has not been seen there since. It has been rarely documented also from the lower Rio Grande Valley. Published records from elsewhere are all based on misidentified material of E. pentalophus, E. papillosus, E. enneacanthus var. brevispinus, and (in Mexico) E. cinerascens (de Candolle) Haage var. tulensis (Bravo) N. P. Taylor. Like E. pentalophus from the same region, E. berlandieri has often been misidentified as E. blanckii (Poselger) Palmer, a Mexican species. Furthermore, D. Weniger (1970) misapplied the name E. berlandieri to part of the common and variable E. pentalophus.